Washington, DC – Today, a coalition of
nine labor unions, collectively representing
over 300,000 employees at the United States
Department of Defense (DoD), filed suit against
the Department and the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) for failing to "afford
employee representatives and management the
opportunity to have meaningful discussions
concerning the development of a new system," as
was required by Congress.

Union officials held a press conference
outside of the United States District Court for
the District of Columbia, where the lawsuit was
officially filed, to make clear the grounds for
the suit.

"The National Security Personnel System
goes beyond being unfair to employees and bad
for the defense of our nation, it is also
unequivocally illegal," said John M. Paolino,
Secretary/Treasurer of the National Federation
of Federal Employees (NFFE).

Union representatives claim DoD and OPM
officials were in violation of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004,
when they held "secret working groups" that
denied employee representatives input into the
personnel system overhaul.

The facts of the lawsuit read: "While the
secret groups developed the labor relations
system behind closed doors, [DoD and OPM] gave
[union representatives] "concept papers" and
engaged [union representatives] in meaningless
discussions, in which [DoD and OPM] presented
no proposals. [DoD and OPM] did not claim
that these papers and discussions were the
"meaningful discussions" required by [the law];
rather, they expressly said that these papers
were not proposals and that the discussions
were "pre-statutory.'"

"Today, we call on the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia to
uphold the intent of the law, and send DoD back
to the table where DoD employees can have the
"meaningful discussions" we are entitled by the
law," said Paolino.